Pete Catches Sr

[brock]

As I finish the Clown family's oral history of Crazy Horse (never realized it would be so long and detailed at the beginning..lol) I came across some stuff I didn't think existed. Video footage of Pete Catches Sr talking about Lakota spirituality. Pete Sr, Frank Fools Crow, Felix Green, and Archie Lame Deer were taught by Horn Chips (son of Chips) who is credited by many for keeping the ceremonies alive when they were under a kind of cultural genocide nearly by himself. He pushed these men to learn the ceremonies.

Pete Sr is credited by many living the traditional spiritual Lakota way of life as being one of the main people responsible for reviving the sun dance. Pete Sr hunka'd several young Lakotas including Floyd Clown in his quest to reintroduce the ceremonies. Prior to reservation days hunkas were not as common because the enormous responsibility and commitment that they required, but extraordinary measures were needed for extraordinary times. Here is a short clip shot by Rob Stoller in Russia:



I always found spirituality an important part of following and helping verify a Lakota oral history. To not allow spirituality to be part of the equation is to ignore the rules that bound, or in some cases still bind, them. Their spirituality created the underlining guidelines for their lives. Anyway, thought I'd share.

[Dietmar]

Thanks brock,

this is really moving, even when it´s only a short clip.

There is a second movie with Pete Catches on the same page about the Lakota relation to the buffalo:



Also, here is an interesting interview with his son Pete V. Catches:
www.heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.6.MEDICINE.PeteCatches.htm


Greetings
Dietmar

[kingsleybray]

Thanks brock, I too enjoyed the clip of Pete Catches talking, also the one Dietmar posted.

Kingsley

[Historian]

For those who may be interested:

There was a man, back in the buffalo days, whose name was Ptehe Woptuh'a. The name's implied meaning is a buffalo horn that is so old it will crumble to little pieces in your hand like a dried leaf. Most people now refer to him as Horn Chips. Born in 1836, Horn Chips was originally known as Tahunska or His Leggings. He was said to have been a member of Chief Lip's band of Wajajes, Upper Brules who joined the Oglalas around 1854.

Horn Chips family died when he was a young child and he went to live with his grandmother who raised him. Horn Chips and Crazy Horse were childhood friends and later it is said that Horn Chips was adopted by the uncle of Crazy Horse. The relationship between Horn Chips and Crazy Horse became stronger around 1862 or 1863, after Horn Chips, now a medicine person, made a war medicine for Crazy Horse. A small white stone with a hole through it, suspended from a deerhide thong, worn over his shoulder, so that it was under his left arm, which was said to protect him from bullets.

Later, it was said that a man named Black Horse dreamed of thunder and worried he would be struck by lightning. He sought out Horn Chips, considered by then to be heyoka. Horn Chips put Black Horse on the hill on Eagle Nest Butte. Then Horn Chips interpreted Black Horse's vision, saying that Black Horse would become heyoka also. Black Horse continued to learn from Horn Chips until he became a powerful healer himself.

Originally, Chief Lip's camp was east of Pass Creek on the Rosebud Reservation. It was in the vicinity of Eagle Nest Butte, an old site used for trapping eagles and a sacred site used for vision quests, and the present community of Wanblee, 5 miles north of the Butte, that Chief Lip's band settled around 1880. However, in the summer of 1890, the boundary between Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservation was moved farther east to the mouth of Black Pipe Creek, which placed Chief Lip's camp on the Pine Ridge Reservation. While Lip's band of Wajajes were technically Sicangu, they continued to live and interact with Oglalas, even insisting that they be counted on the Pine Ridge Rolls. This was the home of Horn Chips, and he helped many people through the night ceremony now referred to as yuwipi, until he died in 1916.

Old man Horn Chips had two sons, Ellis Chips and Joe Chips, a cousin named Joe Ashley, and a half brother named Sam Moves Camp, all of whom studied with Horn Chips and later became powerful yuwipi men themselves. During this next generation of yuwipi healers, others had also become prominent yuwipi healers on Pine Ridge as well, such as George Flesh, Willie Wounded, George Plenty Wolf, Mark Big Road, Frank Fools Crow and John Iron Rope, just to name a few.

Grandpa Ellis Chips and his wife Victoria had three sons, Charles, Phillip and Godfrey. Godfrey Chips has been a yuwipi man since he was 13, and was living in Wanblee, but the last I knew, he is currently in prison. Charles has had his own yuwipi meetings, but travels alot. Phillip used to sing for the yuwipi meetings, but died in a car wreck some years ago.

[miyelo]

hau everybody! I posted some very rare pete catches video awhile back not sure if the link is still up. it was quite lengthy. Dietmar I think you saw it but if anyone else wants to I can repost it now. I dont think I have to be as private about it now as I was then.
The Chipps family are having a bad time. They had some very important bundles, including Crazy Horse's only possessions and an ''unnamed" person sold them back when Unci passed on. They are in the East, well South East I guess you would say. Not good. I know where and who they are with and we need to get them back here. They are unhappy and this is why bad things are happening to certain people.
According to most full blood, traditional elders around here, after Pete and Frank Fools Crow passed, there are no true Sundances left. None of them are done properly anymore.

[Dietmar]

Hau Miyelo,

yes, please. It would be great if you could upload the video.

Thanks.

Dietmar

[brock]

I received the raw footage of Pete Sr from Rob finally. About an hours worth. The Catches real family name is Catches The Enemy but was shortened like so many other Lakota names to one word back when the efforts were to break them away from the Lakota way of life. Apparently Rob was in contact with someone (either Pete Jr or Pete Sr's grandson named Red Elk somewhere in California) in the family and he wanted to make sure they approved of some of it going into the Clown's Crazy Horse DVDs and obviously they did.

But the raw footage does not belong to me so I can not post it. Sorry. I can only do what I said I'd do.

I am on my way east next week to take the last video for the family documentaries. The Carlisle School and Cemetery. The Clown family was able to avoid any of their family members going to any of these schools but I have met many on the rez who still were suffering the effects, some still in their fifties...so not that long ago, although Carlisle ended in 1918 the practice still went on. I will be looking for Lakota names in the cemetery.

Sorry to hear about the Chips family. I met a woman who claimed to be Chips granddaughter. She was married to Guy Dull Knife Jr. Guy and I served in the same platoon together in Nam. He walked point and I was the medic that replaced the other Lakota in the platoon, Francis Whitebird. Apparently the granddaughter that Guy married was one of four Chips granddaughters (I don't know the parents, sorry) and the second one Guy married. He told me he had a hard time with his in-laws after he divorced the first granddaughter to marry her sister. He told me whenever he got together with his in-laws after that he used to tell the two remaining sisters he hadn't married that 'they were going to be next'. I guess last I heard he divorced the second sister and is chasing a German gal, kind of like his bro Webster. He used to tell me that the Clowns really pissed off a lot of folks down on Pine Ridge. I was never sure what to say except I was there to tell their family history and let the cards fall where they may. He then would saddle up close and look me in the eye and ask if I believed what they said was true. And I had to answer truthfully and I said yes. It wasn't like I had just dropped in for a cup of coffee. I spent eight years. I saw them when their guard was all the way down for long periods of time. I had stayed at their house for healthy periods of time. I got to know who they were as human beings. They introduced me to tons of their relatives like the Duprees, the Condons and on and on. So Guy then would nod his head and give me a twinkle from his eye that said 'keep going'.

The Clown family asked me to put their oral history all down in writing after this final DVD with some of the tiny details that got left out of the DVDs. I'm going to miss doing the DVDs as weird as that sounds. So I guess their book is the last loose string.

The Clown family does have another story about their grandfather Waglula's pipe which ended up in the possession of Frank Fools Crow as a gift from True Clown. True had stolen his family's cedar chest that contained the sacred bundles. His father had been skipped over in receiving the sacred bundles in favor of his father's younger brother Edward Clown. So one day when Edward and Amy Clown were in town True took everything from their house except the refrigerator. True gave away two of the three pipes in the cedar chest. Plus sold Crazy Horse's octogon shaped Springfield rifle to the sheriff of Faith who went on to open a gunshop in Spearfish. The Sheriff died and his daughter inherited the rifle and she lives somewhere in Wyoming but the the family doesn't know her name. Anyway of the three pipes, Waglula's was in the possession of Frank Fools Crow. When Floyd was learning from Pete Catches they used to spend time with Fools Crow at ceremonies and just learning. He saw the pipe but said nothing as it was in the hands of a revered Fools Crow. Fools Crow had had it given to him by True. In 2000 after Don Red Thunder had the vision from his father that said it was time to stand up and say who they were the year before, the family decided to get the pipe back. By this time Frank Fools Crow had died, but the pipes went to a relative of Fools Crow named Lone Hill (forgive me, the first name slips my brain but I could find out later). Anyway this Lone Hill had a vision the night before Floyd Clown, Doug War Eagle and Don came for the pipe. He dreamed he had been pushed into the ceiling and held there by a grandfather who told him when the Clowns come give back the pipe. When the Clowns got there he told them the story of his vision and was more than happy to give it to them. They remain good friends to this day. That's not in the DVD. Not enough room. But there's always the book.

[Henri]

Brock....do you have any idea when the last DVD will be available and what can you tell about the book? Will there be a book by the Clown family?
Keep us posted.
Henri

[Historian]

Sept 15, 2009 3:10:31 GMT -5 brock said:

...By this time Frank Fools Crow had died, but the pipes went to a relative of Fools Crow named Lone Hill (forgive me, the first name slips my brain but I could find out later).

Everett Lone Hill

[Henri]

Words reach me that Victori Chipps died last week, she knew Woptuha. her son Charles is in prison for child molasting and Godfrey is also in prison with serious kidney problems.

Henri

[miyelo]

yes she died. the wake and funeral are going on.

[brock]

Henri,

I'm hoping the DVD is out by the end of Oct or first of November. The sound still needs to be mixed and sweetened up north and that normally takes a month.

And yes the book will be told to me by the Clown family. I've toyed with writing something myself but I would be doing everyone a great disservice if I interjected myself into their story in any way. It is how things get messed up. They tell me and I write so that it has some sort of flow. Then they read and say okay or make corrections. Kind of like the videos.

Ernie LaPointe was able to write his own oral history himself and I suggested that the Clowns follow suit as the same players were all still available but they decided against it and their original choice for author never followed through. Since I am the only person outside their immediate family to have physically seen all their sites I kind of became the logical choice. I never really expected to write a book. Field work is my love. But I'll do my best to tell their story in the words and emotions that they tell their story to me.

HinTamaheca,

Pilamaye for Everett Lone Hill's first name. That was kind of you.

Tomorrow I'm off for Carlisle to take some video of the children's graves there, searching for the Lakota ones. I'll offer tobacco and use the footage to help remember their story as part of the last DVD.

[Dietmar]

Currently there is a photograph on ebay that allegedly shows Old Man Catches and his son. Can anyone confirm this?


Old Man Catches & son


back of photograph

[brock]

Dietmar,

I don't think either one is Pete Sr. They maybe family members but the timing of the photo is wrong for the older one and the jaw is wrong on the younger. That's my guess.

[grahamew]

What date are we thinking? 1890s?